Court Cases

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In this 1997 case asserting the right of two political parties to nominate the same candidate, the Center took the opportunity to demonstrate to the U.S. Supreme Court the various ways in which legislatures systematically discriminate against third parties, including in the campaign finance context.

In its first case, acting as co-counsel, the Center represented Steve Forbes and Larry Rockefeller in a successful challenge to ballot access rules in New York’s Republican presidential primary in 1996. The case yielded the first contested GOP presidential primary in the history of the state and led the legislature to relax ballot rules for all elections.

In September 2004, the Brennan Center was a signatory on an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court of Illinois that argued that a mother's right to retain custody of her children should not be terminated permanently based on a history of incarceration.